Blood and Rust
by smellslikecorruption
Summary: Instead of going to Europe right away, Buffy sticks around LA for a few weeks. Which puts her in an interesting position when Spike comes out of the amulet.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Written for seosanal_spuffy on LJ. Takes place during season 5 of Angel, starting immediately after Spike comes out of the amulet. This will be a multi-chap story, but I'm letting you guys know now that updates are going to be fairly sporadic. Real life is kicking my ass, and the only reason the first chapter got done was because I was working on a deadline. But it will be updated!

Ch. 1- Someone to Trust

Spike was burning. Fire in every inch of skin, every pore, the marrow of every bone. Pain seared across his body, until he was certain he was turning to ash. This was it. The end. No backing out now. He was going to see the place Vampires go when they dust. And it was-

An office? No wait, that couldn't be right. And who was that screaming? Oh. That was him. Ok so. Office, no more fire, and people. People saying his name. People he knew?

Angel?

And Harmony?

So there really was a hell. There was a hell, and he was in it, and for all the times he'd thought about where he might go if he dusted, skyscrapers never even made the list.

"Easy slim. Easy. No one's going to hurt you."

Green demons in lurid suits hadn't made the list either. Nor had, well any of these people. Who were these people?

Angel, Harmony, Brunette-who-wasn't-Cordelia, Greensleeves, Tough Guy, and… the man saying his name.

"…The Bloody. He's a Vampire. One of the worst recorded. Second only to-"

"Me. But you're dead."

Spike spun towards Angel. Angel's, office, Angel's great ugly amulet, clearly this whole mess was Angel's fault. Fucking Angel. What the hell did he think he was playing at?

Harmony was speaking again, but fury was washing over Spike so strongly, he could barely make out the sound of her voice, let alone distinguish what she was saying. How dare Angel and his little groupies pull something like this? He was _dying_ five minutes ago, dying for the world, and now he was what? Standing in the middle of the water cooler gossip?

He was going to rip Angel's bloody head off. He shifted into gameface, lunged-

And missed.

And landed… behind the desk?

Wait. Where had his legs gone?

"Bugger."

The room fell silent, and Spike could feel a dozen eyes glued to his body. The half they could see, anyway. He glanced down, and was met with the truly disturbing sight of his body disappearing into the desk.

Something was very, very wrong.

"What- what's happened to me?"

"Well, I'm no doctor, but I think you're a ghost."

No. No, no, he couldn't be a ghost. Vampires die. They dust. They don't burn to ash and then return to haunt Joe in accounting. Harmony was wrong. There was no way, no fucking way he was a ghost.

Of course his argument would have been a whole lot stronger, had he not been standing directly in a solid object. Which, of course, Harmony had to go and point out. Bitch.

Tough Guy was talking now. "Where'd he come from?"

The English one stooped to retrieve the amulet from the floor, and Spike extracted himself from the desk.

"From this."

"What is it?" That was the girl. The one that wasn't Cordelia.

"Something I gave to Buffy before-"

Oh.

God.

The image of her, her eyes shining up at him, her hand burning in his, the last he'd seen of her as she raced against time and flame up the crumbling steps.

"Buffy! Is she-?"

"She's okay."

Relief flowed through him. She was okay. Buffy was okay. And if Buffy was okay, it meant the battle was over. It meant that they'd won.

He needed to see her. Needed to make sure for himself that she really was fine. Needed to hear her voice. He needed to get back to Sunnydale. And then he remembered. Last he'd seen it, Sunnydale was caving in. So if she wasn't in Sunnydale-

"Where- Where is she?"

Angel shifted, looking uncomfortable. "Some place safe."

"Want to see her. Want to talk to her."

Angel made an irritated noise and stared pointedly at the desk behind Spike.

"I kind of think Buffy's the least of your concerns right now, Casper."

Yeah, yeah. Girl he loved first, then figuring out what new law of physics he was breaking.

"You can't keep her from me."

Angel fixed him with a look. "She's not mine to keep. Or yours."

She wasn't. Spike knew she wasn't. But those last few nights, holding her while she slept, it had _felt_ like she was. She'd _felt_ like his, and for now that had to be good enough. It would piss Angel off, at any rate.

"Says you! You got no idea what we had."

"You never had her."

He _had_, though. A million different ways, a hundred different places, and he hadn't been kidding about doing things with her he couldn't spell. And it suddenly occurred to him that Angel probably didn't know that. Jackpot.

Spike got as close as he could without standing in Angel.

"More than you, you poncy-"

His plan to piss off Angel was momentarily derailed when Harmony made a loud noise of disgust.

"Oh. My. God! You and Slayer actually...I mean I know you had that twisted obsession with her, but…" She shuddered, and stormed out of the room, leaving a somewhat stunned silence in her wake.

Harmony Kendall ladies and gentlemen. Stealing everyone's thunder since the early nineteen-eighties.

Spike turned back to Angel, expecting to find a look of shock, maybe some disbelief, and instead found…resigned irritation? Huh. So Angel knew more than Spike had thought he would. Interesting.

"Tell me where she is."

"No. She doesn't need to know right now. At least not until we figure out what's wrong with you."

"So what? You're just going to pretend you have no idea where she is until it's convenient for you? Even if that would keep me looking for her, _which_ it won't, your master plan's going to backfire. What do you think she's going to do to you if you call her up and say 'oh by the way, been meaning to tell you, but Spike came out of that amulet I brought you, and I've known for weeks.' She's not fond of secrets, you know."

"What if you disappear again? What if you fade away before we even know what's going on? It's better for everyone if we keep it quiet for a while."

Angel was in his face now, eyes snapping dangerously.

Spike held his gaze. He was dimly aware that the others in the room were whispering amongst themselves, but he could really care less what they were saying.

"You can't keep her from me. I know you know where she is. Just tell me."

Angel took two deep sawing breaths and stepped back. "Fine. She's in LA. Staying in my hotel. But she's probably leaving soon, Giles wants her to go to Europe with him and restart the Council. And here's what I think. I think you don't tell her you're here, she leaves for England, and she gets on with her life."

"Screw that! You can't make decisions for her! That's not your responsibility you interfering git!"

"She's already mourned you Spike! What's so wrong with letting her think that you're dead?"

"Because I'm _not_ dead! I'm not dead, and if she wants to go to Europe with the Watcher I'm not going to try and stop her. But I want to at least see her before she leaves."

"Why is it so important that you see her?"

Was he serious? "Because I _love_ her, you dunce."

The conversation going on behind them suddenly ceased, and out of the corner of his eye, Spike saw the girl quickly leave the room.

"You're not going to change my mind Angel."

They stared at each other for several tense seconds.

"Hey!"

A female voice cut across the impromptu, and frankly unsettling, staring contest.

Spike turned towards the door and found Girl-who-wasn't-Cordelia standing with her hands on her hips.

"What is it Fred?" Fred? Her name was _Fred_?

"You're both being idiots, and I personally think there are more important things to talk about, for example the vampire ghost who just came out of a piece of jewelry, but it's pretty obvious nothing's going to get done around here until you two solve your little girl problem. I called the hotel. Buffy and Willow are on their way over."

A smile worked its way across Spike's face. She was coming.

"Thanks, uh, Fred."

Fred shrugged. "If I was Buffy, I would want to know that you came back. Besides, if she was the last person to see you, maybe she can help us find some answers."

Angel spoke up from where he was leaning on his desk. "Isn't there anything we could do now? You know, to figure out why Spike isn't a big pile of dust in a crater?"

"I have some ideas, but I want to wait for Willow. Could be this is less scientific and more magical."

English crossed his arms. "So we wait?"

Angel sighed. "We wait."

"Is anyone going to do introductions or should I just keep calling you insulting nicknames in my head?"

…..

Roughly fifteen minutes later, the double doors nearly snapped off their hinges and in strode Buffy, closely followed by Willow.

Spike fought the urge to run up and embrace her. He hadn't quite let himself believe she was okay until he had seen her. But there she was, all in one piece.

"Buffy! Thank God. What's the matter?"

She had stopped abruptly just inside the door and was staring at him with horror and revulsion all over her face. But her eyes, her eyes were full of something else entirely. Fear, maybe, and sadness.

When she finally spoke, her words were halting and close to shaky. "No. No. You're not here. You're not _him_."

"Buffy?" He took a step forward and she flung out her hand. He stopped. "What's _wrong_, love?"

"Don't!"

" Don't _what_?"

"Don't anything! We stopped you! _Spike_ stopped you! How dare you show up here, looking like him!"

Suddenly it all clicked into place, and a horrible weight settled in his stomach.

"No. No Buffy, I'm not The First."

"Really? Because the last time I saw Spike he was pretty solid and _you're_ standing in a chair."

He was? Fuck.

"I came out of the Amulet. I'm a _ghost_."

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "A ghost? Really? That's a new and refreshing crock of bull."

"It's _not_!" He started to pace. "It's me! More or less." Why hadn't he thought about that before she arrived? They'd all spent months fighting an enemy that could assume the form of dead people and walk through walls. Of course that's what she was going to see. He was a moron to have expected anything else.

"You have no idea how much I wish I could believe that. You have no idea how much I wish he was here."

"I don't know Buffy." Oh right. Willow was here. "Did The First ever seem that, um, agitated to you?"

Buffy addressed Willow, but her eyes never left Spike. "We see what we want to see, Will. You know that."

Wait. Willow was here! "Willow!" She jumped, clearly startled by his sudden interest in her.

"What?"

"You're a witch!"

"Yeah…"

"So can't you, I don't know, sense me?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't work like that. I can't feel anything from ghosts. And I couldn't feel anything from The First either. It fooled me too."

Magic. Bloody useless when you needed it most. That was just typical.

Fuck it. He got as close to Buffy as he could, without actually touching her. She looked away from him, but she made no movements.

She had to see. He had to make her _see_.

"Look at me. It's _me_."

She looked him straight in the eye and all the anger melted away leaving only a deep sadness. "No. It isn't. It can't be. Spike's gone. I saw him die."

"Ask me something. Anything. Something only you and I would know."

From a thousand miles away, he heard Angel scoff. "Like that's particularly long list."

Fire snapped into life in Buffy's eyes and she looked past Spike. "It _is_ actually, but the problem with The First is that it knows everything. It becomes the person it's embodying. Anything Spike knew is fair game."

She turned back to him. "Right? That's how you're game works?"

"I wouldn't know. My experience with The First pretty much begins and ends with it torturing me."

Buffy flinched. Good. He was getting to her. If she really did love him, had loved him, shouldn't be able to look at him and just tell? He'd been able to tell her apart from the First. Or he would have, if he hadn't been completely out of his mind.

"Look me in the eye, and tell me I'm not Spike. Please Buffy. Just look at me. I'm not lying."

She pressed her lips together, and faced him dead on. He could see her emotions playing across her face, could pinpoint the very second she saw him for who he was. The moment she started believing that he was who he said, and not her enemy. And he could see, the next moment, when she shut it down. When she stopped herself from hoping.

"I don't know. Maybe. I don't know."

His heart sank. She wasn't going to believe him. She wasn't going to let herself.

"Um." Fred smiled apologeltically. "I don't want to interrupt-" she gestured toward the two of them "-all this, but there are ways we could figure out who he is. What he is. We were just waiting until you two got here."

Her words brought the whole room rushing back. Angel glancing between Spike and Buffy, Willow looking expectantly towards Fred, and Wesley, Gunn, and Lorne who mostly looked confused. And Harmony lurking somewhere just outside the doorway. Probably eavesdropping.

Angel spoke first. "Well they're here now. What's the solution?"

"There are some tests I could run. If he's a ghost, the scanners will pick up on it. And if he's not… I'm sure we have some sort of evil detector. This is Wolfram and Hart after all."

Buffy crossed her arms across her chest and looked around at the lab. It was all fancy equipment and people in lab coats, and really it was far too similar to the Initiative for her to be completely comfortable.

Actually, everyone was looking pretty uncomfortable, but Buffy had a feeling that that was due more in part to the incorporeal elephant in the room than the room itself.

Spike was standing still, hunched over himself, as Fred ran a scanner up and down the length of his body.

Buffy was trying as hard as she could not to look at him. She wanted so badly to believe that it was Spike. That he really had come back. After all, it wasn't like death was the most permanent thing in the world. Not her world at least.

It would have been so easy, back in Angel's office, to look him in the eyes and tell him she believed him. To the same kind of faith in his words that he had always had in hers. And she had believed it. She'd looked at him and it was Spike.

But.

Seven years on a hellmouth had taught her to not always trust her eyes, and to double check against her heart. Seven years and the most important lesson she'd learned was to be wary of the things she wanted coming true. They almost always came with a price. And if the price of wanting Spike to be alive was the First returning to play with her life, then she couldn't be too careful. No matter what her instincts were telling her. Trusting people was a dangerous game, and too many lives were in her hands for her to take reckless chances.

Suddenly a loud beeping erupted from Fred's scanner, and everyone in the room started. She squinted at it for a moment, and then looked up into Spike's expectant face.

"You're not The First. You're a ghost, sort of, but you're you."

Her words raced through Buffy like wildfire. It wasn't The First. It was Spike. Spike was back, he was back, he wasn't dead, he wasn't standing in front of her and he _wasn't dead._

"Buffy?" He was saying her name. Cautiously, like maybe she still wouldn't want him. Stupid vampire.

Alive, alive, alive, Spike was alive.

She could feel a smile stretch across her face as she stared at him across the lab.

"You're back."

He softened, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Tried to tell you that."

Spike was alive, and he was here, and he was smiling at her. Smiling at her like had been three weeks and a lifetime ago.

Joy bubbled up from deep inside her, and Buffy laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

And then everyone keeled over with shock, because I actually got it together and wrote another chapter.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the reviews and favorites and alerts I got for the first chapter, you guys are the best. Updates are still not going to be all that fast, but hopefully there won't be another gap like this one. I know where I'm going now, it's just about when I can find time to write it.

Now I'll shut up and let you get the story.

XXXXX

**Chapter two: Oh, What a Thing to Choose**

_Spike was alive, and he was here, and he was smiling at her. Smiling at her like had been three weeks and a lifetime ago. _

_Joy bubbled up from deep inside her, and Buffy laughed. _

xxxx

One-and-a-half strides were all it took for Spike to cross the floor to where Buffy was standing.

The expression on her face when she looked at him was one he'd rarely seen, especially when she was looking at _him_, and it took a moment to place.

Overjoyed. Buffy looked _overjoyed_ to see him. That was… different. Good. Something he could easily get used to, if given the chance.

He couldn't stop staring at her. Last night- or however long ago it was now, he really ought to figure that out at some point- he'd made his peace with idea of never seeing her again after they opened The Hellmouth. He'd known, deep in his gut, that he wouldn't come back from that fight.

But he had. And Buffy was right in front of him, fully accepting that it was in fact _him_, not The First.

There were too many things to say to her, too many things to ask, and he didn't know where to start.

He was saved the trouble of figuring it out by Angel, who chose that moment to live up to his title as The Biggest Wanker Who Ever Walked The Earth, and cut in with a question of his own.

"So what the hell is he?"

Alright, so it was a solid question, but he couldn't have waited a few more minutes?

Buffy shook herself and directed her attention to a point beyond Spike's shoulder. He reluctantly turned away from her, just enough to look at Willow who was studying a reading from one of the scanners, and Fred who was shrugging her shoulders and saying,

"Well he's not a ghost. I picked up electromagnetic readings consistent with spiritual entities, but there wasn't an ectoplasmic matrix."

"Huh?" Buffy sounded about as baffled as Spike felt.

Without looking up from the piece of paper in her hand, Willow jumped into the conversation, translating science-babble into English with a practiced ease that brought a smirk to Spike's face.

"Ectoplasm is what makes humans capable of seeing ghosts. But Spike doesn't have any. If he was really a ghost he wouldn't be visible."

Fred inclined her head towards Gunn and Wesley. "Like Dennis. Dennis doesn't have an ectoplasmic matrix either. But we can't see Dennis."

Her words held no meaning for Spike, but Gunn and Wesley, were nodding like they understood, and he was almost positive that Angel had flinched slightly. Odd. Lorne didn't react at all, simply stood still in the corner of the room, observing.

"Do humans have that?" Buffy was asking, as she moved to stand beside, rather than behind Spike. "Ectoplasm? Because I was invisible once and-"

She cut off abruptly, glanced at him, and then turned an undeniable shade of pink. "Never mind. Not important right now. So the only reason he's not reading as ghost is the matrix thingy?"

Willow had finally looked up, and was regarding The Slayer with an amused sort of confusion.

Fred shook her head. "Not just that. I detected brainwave activity-"

"On Spike? That is weird." Angel chuckled.

Fred ignored him. "-And heat. Ghosts usually absorb light and heat energy, making the area around them a few degrees cooler. Spike's radiating heat."

He smirked again and inclined his head toward Buffy. "Hear that? Fred thinks I'm hot."

Buffy rolled her eyes, but a grin was tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Lukewarm." Fred decided, her eyes twinkling. "Just above room temperature."

"Not only," Willow began, in a tone he recognized from years of Scoobies-in-research-mode experience, "is that not very ghostly, but it's also weird for a vampire. You're normally room temperature."

He blinked at her. "Yeah, Willow. Think I knew that."

Gunn spoke up from where he was leaning against a piece of equipment. "So the question still stands. What the hell he is he?"

Wesley sighed and began what promised to be a long-winded, Watcher-y explanation.

"Whatever he is, it's clearly tied to the amulet. Spike's essence, for lack of a better term, must have been held within it. Do you have any memory of a strange sensation when it released its energy?"

Spike gaped at him. Beside him Buffy let out another burst of laughter, this one far from happy, and the sound kick-started Spike into speech.

"What? You mean my skin and muscle burning away from the bone? Organs exploding in my chest? Eyeballs melting in their sockets? No. No memory at all. Thanks for asking."

His eyes darted to find Buffy. She was tense, arms crossed in front of her chest, and staring at the floor.

Across the lab, Willow was staring at him, unreadable emotions flitting across her face. To his surprise, she moved quickly across the room until she was standing on the other side of Buffy. He met her eyes, and she smiled at him, briefly, before they returned to conversation.

Huh. That had been…unexpected.

The room was divided now. Angel's friends (Employees? Minions? Handlers?) on one side, Sunnydale survivors on the other.

And then there was Angel, somewhere in the middle. There was a metaphor there, maybe, but Spike wasn't in the mood to find it.

Angel sighed. "Ok, he's connected to the amulet. Last I heard-" And now he was swiveling a reproachful gaze in the direction of both Buffy and Willow. Jackass. "-It was buried deep in the crater formerly known as The Hellmouth. How did it end up in my mail pile?"

"Maybe he's here for a reason. You know, some higher purpose or something he's destined for. Sent to us by the-"

It was then that Angel's previous statement sunk all the way in and Spike raised his voice over Fred's. "_Formerly_ known as The Hellmouth?"

"You closed it." Buffy said softly.

He'd what?

"I what?"

He pivoted to face her and everyone else ceased to exist.

"You closed it, Spike." She repeated. "You closed The Hellmouth. Permanently." The fierce pride in her voice was almost startling.

He'd known he'd died fighting. Known he'd died saving the World (even if, for him, the whole world was a single person). But he hadn't known he'd closed a hellmouth. Didn't even know they _could_ be closed, actually.

"How?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. No one does. All we know is, when you sacrificed yourself, when you let the locket burn you up and take out all the ubervamps, you also sealed The Hellmouth. People have gone out there with scanners, with spells, all sorts of things. It's gone. Because of _you_."

_I believe in you._

_It's meant to be worn by a champion._

It was a nice feeling, knowing that the absurd amount of faith she'd put in him over the past year had actually paid off.

Then her brow wrinkled and she added, almost as an afterthought, "You also managed to turn the entire town into a giant crater, so Sunnydale doesn't exist anymore either. But what's an apocalypse without a little collateral property damage? Coming up with an explanation hasn't been a picnic but-"

Buffy froze mid-sentence, horror written on her face.

"What? What is it?" He caught sight of his hands, fading away into nothing, and then he was gone.

xxxx

It couldn't have lasted more than a handful of seconds.

Just long enough for Gunn to say, "where'd he go?" and Fred to come racing forward with her scanner, and Willow to for Buffy in concern.

Just long enough for Buffy to completely forget how to breathe.

And then he was back, and she was nearly breaking with relief. Willow's fingers closed around her wrist, but whether it was from happiness or concern she couldn't say. She couldn't make herself look away from Spike long enough to find out. Part of her was irrationally afraid that if she looked away he'd disappear again, for good.

He didn't speak. Simply stared right back, with an intensity that rattled her. There was fear lurking behind his eyes, the kind she mostly associated with the worst kind of apocalypse.

Willow's fingernails dug into Buffy's wrist with no warning. She'd seen it too.

Spike blinked and it was gone.

"Spike?" Gunn spoke up. "Where'd you go?"

"I, um, I don't-"

Fred's soft voice broke in. "You don't know?"

He blinked again, screwing his eyes shut, tight.

_Uh-oh_. Buffy though. She knew an 'about to lose control' Spike, when she saw him.

Unexpectedly but not surprisingly, he rounded on Angel.

_There it is._

"You! This is _your_ fault."

Angel frowned. "Mine? How is it-?"

"You brought that bloody amulet to Sunnydale. You would have been the one to use it, until you chickened out."

The expression on Angel's face might have been funny if the situation hadn't been so tense.

Actually, it was still pretty funny.

"What did you-?"

"You heard me!" Spike was worked up now, pacing and waving his hands, and Buffy added 'Cigarettes' to a mental list of things Spike couldn't do or have without a corporeal body.

"You left town in the nick of time, didn't you, before the death and mayhem? Abandoned the woman you claimed to love."

Oh, good. Everyone in the room was looking at her now, instead of the angry vampires. Much better.

"I, uh, I asked him to leave."

"See. She made the call. Wasn't my choice."

It was a story they'd already repeated several times over the last couple of weeks. As it turns out, when an ally shows up right before a battle and you send him packing without telling anyone else he was even _there_, you have some explaining to do once everyone finds out.

Spike made an irritated noise that sounded more like a growl than anything else. Buffy was pretty confident that if Spike had possessed the power, Angel would have already gone flying into at least one piece of lab equipment.

"And coming back as a fucking ghost was mine?"

Somewhere to her left, Buffy heard Fred mutter something about how he wasn't really a ghost, and Willow replying that this maybe wasn't the best time to bring that up again.

"So what if I have a destiny? I'm not _you_. I don't give a piss about atonement or destiny. Just because I got my soul back doesn't mean I'm gonna let myself be led around by-"

"Hold on." Lorne. She'd almost forgotten he was there. "Pause, rewind. Spike has a soul? _His_ soul?"

A stunned silence filled the room until Spike fixed her with a look of exasperation that was achingly familiar.

"You didn't tell them? Could hardly keep your mouth shut about it back home, but-"

"It never came up! It's not like I hang out with these guys all that often! Besides, Angel knew, so I kind of figured-

"Wait a second. Angel, why _didn't_ you say something?"

He refused to look at her and fidgeted uncomfortably.

No way. No _freaking_ way was he still hung up over something so unbelievably petty.

"Oh my God! Are you kidding me? You're still pissed because you 'had one first?' Seriously Angel, you are twelve years old, I _swear_."

Wesley spoke first. "What are you talking about Buffy? How long has Angel known-?"

She stared straight at Angel while she answered. He still wouldn't look at anything but his fingernails, but maybe if she stared hard he'd be able to _feel_ the irritation she was sure was rolling off of her in waves.

"Since he brought me the amulet. He said he could smell Spike on me- which, by the way, I maintain is creepy and a gross misuse of vamp powers- and then he wanted to know if Spike was my boyfriend, because clearly the important thing to be discussing right before an apocalypse is my choice in men, and I told him that Spike has a soul, and Angel got all pouty and started talking about how he'd had one before it was cool. Then he gave me the amulet and he left. By the way, Angel, the last time someone told me they had something before it was cool, it was Cordelia and she was talking about her teddy bear backpack. And we were _sixteen_."

So, bringing up Cordelia might not have been the nicest thing she'd done recently, but it got Angel to look at her, so that was something.

"You also gave me a that speech about how you were cookie dough." He said slyly.

Wesley fell silent, apparently having some difficulty processing all of the information she'd dumped in his lap. "Cookie dough?"

"Don't worry about it."

Spike was looking at Angel again, eyes narrowed, head tilted. Calculating.

"Maybe," He suggested, "Captain Forehead was feeling a little less special. Was that it? Didn't like me crashing your exclusive club- another vampire with a soul in the world. Another vampire with a soul in _her_ life."

Angel stood abruptly to his feet, spun around, and marched from the room.

Privately, Buffy thought that all he'd really accomplished was proving Spike's point.

An uneasy silence settled over the lab. Wesley pulled off his glasses and polished them with the edge of his shirt.

"Now that we've gotten that, ah, _display_ taken care of, could we possibly get back to Spike having a soul? It is a rather remarkable turn of events. Were you cursed as well?"

"I bloody well was _not_!"

"He fought for it, Wesley. He wanted it and he won it back. And _how_ he did that is his business."

"But _why?_ Buffy, you must understand that this is completely unprecedented. Spike, what on earth would make you- a demon- want your soul?"

Spike hesitated.

Buffy didn't.

"For me."

She stumbled over the rest, astounded, as she always was when she actually allowed herself to think about it, by what Spike had done.

"To be a better- to be better. Because he loved me."

She looked at Spike then, and the rest of the world slipped away. He looked shocked. Completely taken aback by how willing she had been to share that much of their history with people who were practically strangers. She was, frankly, a little shocked herself. It was a complicated history, to say the least.

But whatever else it was, it was _theirs_. Something private and important and not up for public discussion. Not something for Wesley to put into a few sentences in a record book somewhere.

"She made me want," Spike said softly, not taking his eyes off of her. "To be a man. Like she deserved."

She swallowed hard and managed to say, above the pounding of her heart in her throat, "That's all you need to know, Wes. The rest… It's not really anybody else's business. Understood?"

Four voices affirmed that, yes, it was understood.

"Am I missing something?" Said Fred.

"Probably." Said Willow. "You get used to it."

xxxx

Apparently, Angel had accidentally killed his three o'clock appointment (and the fact that Angel had "three o'clocks" at all, much less one that could be mistaken as something that needed to be slayed was still a little mind-boggling).

Gunn, Wes, and Fred had gone rushing off to figure out what was going on, and Lorne had gone hurrying in the other direction muttering something about damage control.

Then Fred had reappeared, asked Willow to take a look at some files she'd been meaning to show her, and told Buffy and Spike that they could go hang out in her office if they wanted, because she had some things she wanted to talk to Spike about once she got the chance.

So, quite suddenly, everyone else was gone and Buffy was alone with Spike for the first time since she'd arrived at Wolfram and Hart.

It was what she'd been hoping for, ever since she finally let herself start believing that he was back. But now that they were alone, she just felt vulnerable.

No one to serve as a buffer. Just him and her and too many things to say.

"So. How long was I gone?"

Buffy's stomach dropped to somewhere near her feet, but it seemed that he didn't even realize what he'd said.

And that was when it hit her. It didn't really matter what she said to him or what he said to her, because he'd understand. They'd been here before.

"Eighteen days yesterday. Nineteen today. But today doesn't count does it?"

He looked startled. "You remember that?"

Buffy sat on her hands. She wanted nothing more than to touch him. Hug him, hold his hand, _something_.

Instead she smiled.

"Kind of a hard thing to forget."

He chuckled, but there was no warmth behind it. "I'd imagine."

"Where, um, where were you? Before today I mean?"

She held her breath, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.

To her surprise, Spike shrugged. "Don't know. I don't think I was anywhere. One minute I was standing in the Hellmouth and the next minute I was standing in Angel's office."

"Oh." That was…unexpected.

Hell, she'd been prepared for. And then there was the tiny part of her that refused to be silenced, insisting that saving the world had to be enough for even a vampire to earn eternal rest.

"Yeah." He sighed. "Died to save the world, but that's not enough is it? Can't even be finished before they drag me right back to fight another day. I thought I was done. I felt like… I felt _done_."

Goosebumps spread across Buffy's arms.

"I get that." She said to the stapler sitting on Fred's desk.

"I know you do."

He sounded tired. Far more tired than he'd sounded with the others. The kind of tired the others probably wouldn't have understood.

And it was shadows and secrets and _I can be alone with you here_ all over again.

"I wish I could touch you." She blurted.

Spike's eyebrows shot up, and Buffy was somewhat irritated to find that she was blushing, because seriously? On a list of blush-worthy things she'd said to Spike, _that_ shouldn't even crack the top ten.

She crossed her arms. "I can't even, like, touch your shoulder or your arm or anything, and I want-"

She shrugged, helplessness washing over her. "I just want to help. And I don't know how."

_And how do I make sure your really alive if I can't feel you? If I can't touch you? _

"You can talk to me. Distract me from the fact that I've somehow become Casper's fangy cousin."

Buffy chuckled, in spite of herself. "This year's must have Halloween costume?"

"Damn right it is."

Still smiling, she asked him, "What do you want to talk about?"

It was a loaded question, but she just couldn't find it within her to be worried about his answer.

"Have a feeling I missed some stuff in the last nineteen days. You could bring me up to speed. "

Oh. Oh, that she could definitely do.

"Where do you want me to-"

He took a deep breath, like he was bracing against some unseen foe.

"Rest of the battle. How'd we do? Obviously we won, but…"

Spike trailed off, his real question hanging in the air.

Buffy closed her eyes. This part had gotten easier in the last month, but only slightly.

"Anya's dead. Bringer's got her. And a lot of the new slayers…"

xxxx

"…So now I'm trying to figure out what I want to do next, I guess. I mean I can't stay in LA, crashing at The Hyperion forever and-"

The door to Fred's office flew open and Angel stood framed by the doorway.

"Buffy! Good, you're still here. Listen; would you be up for helping me out with something? There's this necromancer and, well, I could use some back up. Of the not-dead variety."


End file.
